


tangerines

by Alyene



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 07:00:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11709261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyene/pseuds/Alyene
Summary: moments can only be infinite when they end





	tangerines

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be long, but I'm bad at writing long things, so I guess this is all that's left.
> 
> Disclaimer:   
> J.K. Rowling: Billionaire. Probably gets freshly made orange juice everyday.  
> Me: Not a billionaire. Buys the cheapest orange juice at the grocery store even though I hate it and it tastes horrible  
> Conclusion: I am not J.K. Rowling.

I.  
It happens first in winter. Draco thinks it’s fitting, for winter is bitter and cold and relentless. For winter is the snow that whirls angrily in off-white currents and falls in thick, hard sheets across the Grounds. For winter is the icy hail chunks that glisten in the sunlight like clear gems but crashes through glass windows, leaving sparkling shards in his bed. 

Draco thinks if he were a season, he would be winter.

-

“I hate winter,” he says. 

“Why?” 

“I hate what it stands for.”

“And what does it stand for, then?”

-

Turns out, it stands for more than Draco originally thinks.

It stands for the first day of the repeated year. It’s the silence, the glares, the ignorance, the scoldings of the professors.

It’s being punched by the Boy Who Should’ve Died. It stands for shouting, and hexing, and desperate “Fuck you”s. It’s sneaking into the greenhouse at two in the morning. It’s being caught. 

It stands for study sessions with a certain brunette. It’s looking for a certain book in the library. It’s the O written on the Muggle Studies midterm. It’s the cheating accusations.

It’s detention in the Potions classroom. It’s being shoved angrily up a wall. It’s the feeling of lips harshly pressing onto your own, biting, searching, forcing. It’s the panted breathing that follows as green eyes blaze with passion, something not quite there, yet there. 

It’s the knowing look in Granger’s eyes. It’s seeing him kiss a ginger-haired girl

And the snow does not stop. It does not stop at all.

For this is not Draco’s first winter. And it is not Potter’s first either. 

Fate notices, and she takes her crafty hands and has her fill of fun. Life shakes his head and moves on.

II.  
It happens again in Spring. 

When the rain triples its onslaught and the mud splatters on his newly cleaned shoes. When puddles mark the path to the greenhouses. When someone hurls a group of water - the molecules forced together into a tight ball - that spins, and spins, and finally, hits.

But spring brings hope as well. Hope soon to be lost, but hope nonetheless.

For spring brings secret rendezvouses in the Astronomy Tower. It brings the blue black night sky and brilliant-lighted stars that dance across Potter’s eyes.

Spring brings innocent pecks and fresh flowers and a soft “i love you”. Spring brings sneaking for brunch together in Hogsmeade. A promise of a breakup.

However, along with the stars and eyes and dinner, there is fighting. Long arguments about the Weaslette. Reprimanding from Granger. Sitting alone on the grass, the green grass that reminds him so much of Potter, watching him love another. It brings the end of the school year.

It brings the proposal and the blaring question in the shape of a girl.

Spring is short and fleeting, until the memories are floating away with the eerie wind, and the soft-spoken waves, until it is gone.

Not gone, he tries to remind himself. Not gone, just hidden.

Hidden very, very well.

-  
Fate frowns, and Life sighs disapprovingly.

III.  
Summer is hot. It’s when the sky is ablaze and the air is full of hazy orange hues mixed with the typical skyblue.

There is nothing left for Draco in Summer.

Yes, there is the heat. The heat between them that Draco thinks Potter could never have with someone else. There’s the dust that settles in the left corner of the broom closet, wiped away by the force of Draco’s jeans.  
Yes, there are the stolen whispers. The continued promises of the future they could have, but won’t have. 

But, in the end, it’s gone. 

For Summer is beautiful. And its beauty laughs at Draco, laughs and laughs and laughs.

Granger’s pitying looks. 

The wedding invitation.

-

Fate cannot stand what is happening. 

Neither can Draco.

-

He goes to the wedding. Oh, he goes. And he looks at Potter, from the crowd, and reminds himself, this is where he belongs. 

This is where he always was. In the crowd.

IV.  
There is no Autumn for Draco.

-

“What do you think of me?”

 

“I don’t.”


End file.
